Egypt (Arabic: مصر, Miṣr or Maṣr; Egyptian: Kemet; Coptic: Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Kīmi; Hebrew: מצרים, Miẓrāīm; Greek: Αίγυπτος, Aígyptos; Latin: Ægyptus), now known as the Arab Republic of Egypt (Arabic: جمهورية مصر العربية, Gumhūriyyat Miṣr al-ʿArabiyyah), is the heir of a civilization that most creationist observers estimate to be product of post-flood (and later Babel) migration. It was one of the first of the superpowers that arose following the dispersal of humanity from the Tower of Babel.

The earliest of its monuments demonstrate the mathematical, astronomical, and architectural skills that the ancient Egyptians had for constructing rock tombs, temples, and pyramids—the latter dedicated to the divine kings, the Pharaohs. It played several prominent roles in the history of the Patriarchs, the Hebrews, and the children of Israel until it fell to Nebuchadnezzar II, the first of many conquerors.

The most recent conquerors, the British, granted Egypt partial independence in 1922 and withdrew completely in 1954. Of these foreign rulers, the Arab Muslim conquest, by its Arabization and Islamization, had the greatest impact on Egyptian life and culture, resulting in the rapid conversion of the overwhelming majority of the population to Islam and the spread of Sunni Muslim religious and educational institutions.[4]

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Etymology

The ancient Egyptian name for Egypt is Kemet (km.t), which means "black land", referring to the fertile black soils of the Nile flood plains, distinct from the deshret (dšṛt), or "red land" of the desert.[5] This name later became Ⲭⲏⲙⲓ, Kīmi in the Coptic stage of the Egyptian language and Χημία (Khēmía) in early Greek.

Miṣr or Maṣr (مصر), the Arabic and modern official name of Egypt, is of Semitic origin and is directly cognate with the Hebrew מצרים, Miẓrāīm, meaning "the two straits", a reference to the dynastic separation of upper and lower Egypt or "the two Mazors", i.e. walls of fortifications. On the border with Asia, Egypt had a chain of these forts. It was the Canaanites who called them Shar or "the wall".

The Assyrians and Babylonians likewise called it Misri, Museri, or Musri but, it was the Mycenaeans who called it a-ku-pi-ti-yo (𐁁𐀓𐀠𐀴𐀍) from whence the Greek word Αίγυπτος, Aígyptos originated. Strabo suggested that the word came from the compound Aἰγαίου ὑπτίως, Aigaiou huptiōs, meaning "below the Aegean". After Octavian (the future emperor Augustus) annexed the Greek Ptolemaic kingdom of Egypt to the Roman Empire in 30 BC, it was called Ægyptus in Latin.

According to Eusebius - 4th century AD historian:

“

Egypt is called Mestraim by the Hebrews; and Mestraim lived not long after the flood. For after the flood, Cham (or Ham), son of Noah, begat Aeguptos or Mestraim, who was the first to set out to establish himself in Egypt, at the time when the tribes began to disperse this way and that…Mestraim was indeed the founder of the Egyptian race; and from him the first Egyptian Dynasty must be held to spring.[6]

”

History

Ancient Egypt

About 4,200 years ago, Mizraim, son of Ham, led his tribe from the failed city-state of Babel to the Nile River. Ussher calculates that this happened in the summer of 1816 AM (2188 BC). He cites Constantinus Manasses as stating that "the Egyptian state lasted sixteen hundred and sixty-three years," and works backward from the conquest of Egypt by Cambyses, king of Persia and relative of Cyrus.[2] Mizraim's descendants who settled in the land of Egypt (and elsewhere) were the Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, Pathrusim, Casluhim (out of whom came the Philistines), and the Caphtorim.

Within the long sweep of Egyptian history, certain events or epochs have been crucial to the development of Egyptian society and culture. One of these was the unification of Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt sometime in the 2nd millennium BC. The ancient Egyptians regarded this event as the most important in their history, comparable to the "First Time," or the Creation of the Universe. With the unification of the "Two Lands" by the legendary, if not mythical, King Menes (perhaps identifiable with Mizraim), the glorious Pharaonic Age began. Power was centralized in the hands of a god-king, and, thus, Egypt became the first organized society.

The ancient Egyptians were the first people of antiquity to act on a belief in life after death, preserving the bodies of certain high officials through mummification. They were the first to build in stone and to fashion the arch in stone and brick. Even before the unification of the Two Lands, the Egyptians had developed a plow and a system of writing. They were accomplished sailors and shipbuilders. They learned to chart the heavens in order to predict the Nile flood. Their physicians prescribed healing remedies and performed surgical operations. They sculpted in stone and decorated the walls of their tombs with naturalistic murals in vibrant colors. The legacy of ancient Egypt is written in stone across the face of the country from the pyramids of Upper Egypt to the rock tombs in the Valley of the Kings to the Old Kingdom temples of Luxor and Karnak to the Ptolemaic temples of Edfu and Dendera and to the Roman temple to Isis on Philae Island.[4]

Modern Egypt

Modern Egypt has an unusual geographical and cultural unity that has given the Egyptian people a strong sense of identity and a pride in their heritage as descendants of humankind's earliest civilized community after the global flood. This is true in spite of the fact that the most of present inhabitants are not entirely descended from the Mizraimites that first settled and built Egypt but, are in fact heavily mixed with Nubians and Arabs. The Copts are considered to be the direct descendants of the Ancient Egyptians[7][8][9][10][11] due to their affinity for endogamous marriage and opposition to intermarriage with non-Copts. The word Copt was first used by the Arab invaders in the 7th century to denote to all Egyptians. With time, as most Egyptians converted to Islam (the religion brought by the Arabs), the term Copt became exclusive to those Egyptians who remained Christian and did not intermarry with the Arabs.

The population of Egypt was estimated at more than 75.5 million in November of 2008, with an annual growth rate estimated at 2.6%. About 99% of population lives along the Nile Valley and Delta, with dwellings scattered throughout the Western Desert, Eastern Desert, and the Sinai Peninsula.

Geography

Egypt, covering 1,001,449 square kilometers of land, is about the same size as the U.S. states of Texas and New Mexico combined. The country's greatest distance from north to south is 1,024 kilometers, and from east to west, 1,240 kilometers. The country is located in northeastern Africa and includes the Sinai Peninsula (also seen as Sinai), which is often considered part of Asia. Egypt's natural boundaries consist of more than 2,900 kilometers of coastline along the Mediterranean Sea, the Gulf of Suez, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Red Sea.

Egypt has land boundaries with Israel, Libya, Sudan, and the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian area formerly administered by Egypt, occupied by Israel after 1967, ceded to the Palestinian Authority in 2003 and now controlled by a mutinous Palestinian faction. The land boundaries are generally straight lines that do not conform to geographic features such as rivers. Egypt shares its longest boundary, which extends 1,273 kilometers, with Sudan. In accordance with the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium Agreement of 1899, this boundary runs westward from the Red Sea along the twenty-second parallel, includes the Sudanese Nile salient (Wadi Halfa salient), and continues along the twenty-second parallel until it meets the twenty-fifth meridian. The Sudanese Nile salient, a finger-shaped area along the Nile River (Nahr an Nil) north of the twenty-second parallel, is nearly covered by Lake Nasser, which was created when the Aswan High Dam was constructed in the 1960s. An "administrative" boundary, which supplements the main Egyptian-Sudanese boundary permits nomadic tribes to gain access to water holes at the eastern end of Egypt's southern frontier. The administrative boundary departs from the international boundary in two places; Egypt administers the area south of the twenty-second parallel, and Sudan administers the area north of it.

Egypt shares all 1,150 kilometers of the western border with Libya. This border was defined in 1925 under an agreement with Italy, which had colonized Libya. Before and after World War II, the northern border was adjusted, resulting in the return of the village of As Sallum to Egyptian sovereignty. Egypt shares 255 kilometers of its eastern border in Sinai with Israel and 11 kilometers with the Gaza Strip.

Egypt is divided into twenty-six governorates (sometimes called provinces), which include four city governorates: Alexandria (Al Iskandariyah), Cairo (Al Qahirah), Port Said (Bur Said) and Suez; the nine governorates of Lower Egypt in the Nile Delta region; the eight governorates of Upper Egypt along the Nile River south from Cairo to Aswan; and the five frontier governorates covering Sinai and the deserts that lie west and east of the Nile. All governorates, except the frontier ones, are in the Nile Delta or along the Nile Valley and Suez Canal.[4]

Environment

Throughout Egypt, days are commonly warm or hot, and nights are cool. Egypt has only two seasons: a mild winter from November to April and a hot summer from May to October. The only differences between the seasons are variations in daytime temperatures and changes in prevailing winds. In the coastal regions, temperatures range between an average minimum of 14° C in winter and an average maximum of 30° C in summer.

Temperatures vary widely in the inland desert areas, especially in summer, when they may range from 7° C at night to 43° C during the day. During winter, temperatures in the desert fluctuate less dramatically, but they can be as low as 0° C at night and as high as 18° C during the day.

The average annual temperature increases moving southward from the Delta to the Sudanese border, where temperatures are similar to those of the open deserts to the east and west. In the north, the cooler temperatures of Alexandria during the summer have made the city a popular resort. Throughout the Delta and the northern Nile Valley, there are occasional winter cold spells accompanied by light frost and even snow. At Aswan, in the south, June temperatures can be as low as 10° C at night and as high as 41° C during the day when the sky is clear.

Egypt receives fewer than eighty millimeters of precipitation annually in most areas. Most rain falls along the coast, but even the wettest area, around Alexandria, receives only about 200 millimeters of precipitation per year. Alexandria has relatively high humidity, but sea breezes help keep the moisture down to a comfortable level. Moving southward, the amount of precipitation decreases suddenly. Cairo receives a little more than one centimeter of precipitation each year. The city, however, reports humidity as high as 77 percent during the summer. But during the rest of the year, humidity is low. The areas south of Cairo receive only traces of rainfall. Some areas will go years without rain and then experience sudden downpours that result in flash floods. Sinai receives somewhat more rainfall (about twelve centimeters annually in the north) than the other desert areas, and the region is dotted by numerous wells and oases, which support small population centers that formerly were focal points on trade routes. Water drainage toward the Mediterranean Sea from the main plateau supplies sufficient moisture to permit some agriculture in the coastal area, particularly near Al Arish.

A phenomenon of Egypt's climate is the hot spring wind that blows across the country. The winds, known to Europeans as the sirocco and to Egyptians as the khamsin, usually arrive in April but occasionally occur in March and May. The winds form in small but vigorous low-pressure areas in the Isthmus of Suez and sweep across the northern coast of Africa. Unobstructed by geographical features, the winds reach high velocities and carry great quantities of sand and dust from the deserts. These sandstorms, often accompanied by winds of up to 140 kilometers per hour, can cause temperatures to rise as much as 20° C in two hours. The winds blow intermittently and may continue for days, cause illness in people and animals, harm crops, and occasionally damage houses and infrastructure.[4]

Politics

The modern history of Egypt is marked by Egyptian attempts to achieve political independence, first from the Ottoman Empire and then from the British. In the first half of the nineteenth century, Muhammad Ali, an Albanian and the Ottoman viceroy in Egypt, attempted to create an Egyptian empire that extended to Syria and to remove Egypt from Turkish control. Ultimately, he was unsuccessful, and true independence from foreign powers would not be achieved until midway through the next century.

Foreign, including British, investment in Egypt and Britain's need to maintain control over the Suez Canal resulted in the British occupation of Egypt in 1882. During the First World War, the British staged multiple operations from Egypt to break Ottoman dominion over all Arab lands. The most famous officer involved in these operations was Major T. E. Lawrence, also known as "Al-Aurens" or "Lawrence of Arabia."

Although Egypt was granted nominal independence in 1922, Britain remained the real power in the country. Genuine political independence was finally achieved between the 1952 Revolution and the 1956 War. In 1952 the Free Officers, led by Lieutenant Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser, took control of the government and removed King Farouk from power. In 1956 Nasser, as Egyptian president, announced the nationalization of the Suez Canal, an action that resulted in the tripartite invasion by Britain, France, and Israel. Ultimately, however, Egypt prevailed, and the last British troops were withdrawn from the country by the end of the year.

No history of Egypt would be complete without mentioning the Arab-Israeli conflict, which has cost Egypt so much in lives, territory, and property. Egypt participated in the Six-day War of 1967 and lost the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula. In 1973, President Anwar el-Sadat attacked Israel across the Suez Canal, while Syrian forces attacked Israel from the north. This "Yom Kippur War" also ended in defeat for the Arab forces, and this defeat finally convinced Sadat to seek permanent peace with Israel. He achieved this in 1979 when he and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel signed the Camp David Accords, named for the American Presidential retreat to which President James Earl Carter, Jr., of the United States, had invited both men to talk. The accords, however, constituted a separate peace between Egypt and Israel and did not lead to a comprehensive settlement that would have satisfied Palestinian demands for a homeland or brought about peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Anwar el-Sadat was ultimately assassinated by his own troops as they were passing in review before him. Thereafter Egypt remained embroiled in the conflict on the diplomatic level and continued to press for an international conference to achieve a comprehensive agreement.[4]

Religious fervor increased among all social classes after Egypt's defeat in the June 1967 War. Pious individuals commonly blamed Egypt's lack of faith for the country's setbacks. The resurgence in public worship and displays of devotion persisted in the late 1980s. A relaxation of press censorship in 1974 stimulated the growth of religious publications. Religiously inspired political activism and participation in Sufi orders intensified among the urban, educated, formerly secular-minded segments of the populace.[4]